They gave the minister an opportunity to fill skill gaps on the board, e.g. appoint individuals with expertise in finance or with experience in the governance of large organisations.
[8] Rick Bettle left the West Coast DHB at the end of 2002 and after Dr Christine Robertson was acting chairperson for two months, King appointed Professor Gregor Coster as the new chair on 11 February 2003.
[14] Hodgson appointed Bob Francis to take over as chairperson for Wairarapa DHB from Doug Matheson on 28 November 2006.
[20] On 14 December, Cunliffe announced businessman John Anderson as the new chairperson for the Capital and Coast DHB, who was to work alongside a Crown Monitor (i.e. a person who observes a board's decision-making, ensures government policy is reflected in board decisions, and who reports directly to the minister).
[23] With the 8 November 2008 general election, the Fifth National Government came into power and the role of Health Minister was assigned to Tony Ryall.
[25] In December 2008, Ryall foreshadowed that the board of Hawke's Bay DHB elected in 2007 would be reinstated from February 2009, with the current commissioner John Anderson taking the chairmanship.
[26] In February 2009, Kay McKelvie's[a] and Jerry Rickman's[b] resignations as chairpersons of the Waitemata and Waikato DHBs were announced, respectively.
[29][30] Also in February, Ryall sacked the Otago DHB chairperson, Richard Thomson, over a $17 million fraud by staff members and replaced him with immediate effect with Errol Millar.
[38] Taranaki DHB chair John Young died on 14 September 2010, a month prior to the next local body election.
Ten new chairpersons were announced and three people (Joe Butterfield, Virginia Hope, and Lester Levy) chaired two boards.
[44] In May 2015, the government passed the New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill.
This allowed it to keep the commissioners for the Southern DHB in place, with no district health board elections held in that area in 2016.
[47] On 1 December 2016, Health Minister Coleman released the list of 19 board chairpersons, with Southern DHB still run by a commissioner.
[49] After the 2017 general election, the Sixth Labour Government of New Zealand formed and David Clark succeeded Coleman as Minister of Health.
[50] Lester Levy resigned in December 2017 as chair of all three Auckland region DHBs as he was nearing the statutory limit of service on the Waitematā DHB, where he had been appointed in June 2009.
[53] On 7 May 2019, Clark sacked the board of Waikato DHB and installed Dr Karen Poutasi as a commissioner.
On 7 December 2019, Health Minister Clark released the list of 19 board chairpersons, with the Waikato DHB under continued control by a commissioner.
[56] Effective 8 March 2020, Sir Michael Cullen resigned from his chairmanship of the Bay of Plenty DHB after he had been diagnosed with small-cell carcinoma.
[59] Shea was appointed co-chair of the Māori Health Authority Te Aka Whai Ora in September 2021.